Tag: secular humanism

There are five presumptions that many Christians make regarding non-believers that are destructive and simply not true. As a person who has wavered back and forth between belief and unbelief, I have had to confront these myths frequently. They offend me, insult me, and hurt me every time I am exposed to them, and plainly put, they are a result of an ignorance of the lives of non-believers and experiences outside the Christian community.

1) YOU CAN’T REALLY BE HAPPY OR HAVE MEANING WITHOUT CHRIST AS THE CENTER OF YOUR LIFE. Nine years ago, when I was a single mom and not a believer in Christ or God at all, I was happy, extremely happy. I felt as if I was living out my purpose. I loved my job, I loved my kids, I loved my life. In fact, I have had far greater unhappiness and confusion about the meaning of life as a Christian than with any other belief system. And at times when I embraced no belief whatsoever, I was very much at peace, free from the confusion and ambivalence of believing some, but not all, of the bible. I don’t necessarily think happiness is the purpose of life, and it has nothing to do with my unbelief; however, I get really tired of hearing things about myself that I know are simply not true. For example, I heard a well-known pastor say on a Christian talk radio show the other day, this ridiculous statement: “Have you ever met someone who was not a Christian that was totally, enthusiastically happy? Of course not. Me neither.” Uh, yes, as a matter of fact, I’ve known numerous enthusiastically happy atheists and people who practice other religions as well.

2) YOU CAN’T HAVE A REALLY GOOD MARRIAGE UNLESS YOU PUT CHRIST FIRST IN YOUR MARRIAGE. I have an extremely happy marriage, and Christ is definitely not at the center of it and probably never has been. Although my husband is a man of strong faith and professes true belief and commitment to Christ, I have only been an actively believing Christian for about two and half of the years we’ve been married, and even during these periods, we always put each other first, and still do. We treat each other unselfishly, with kindness, we don’t ever name-call or even shout at each other in a disagreement because we respect each other, admire each other, esteem each other better than ourselves. There is no adherence to traditional roles, no mandate to submissiveness, no ridiculous idea that he, as a man, needs respect more than love, or I, as a woman, need love more than respect. We both need love and respect equally. I believe we would be just as happy with each other and treat each other as well if either one of us were atheists, Hindu, Wiccan, Buddhists, or a number of other religions.

3)YOU CAN’T GENUINELY LOVE PEOPLE OR PUT OTHERS BEFORE YOURSELF WITHOUT THE SUPERNATURAL HELP OF GOD. I never had a problem having a soft heart towards a vast number of people. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I believe strongly in mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. I cannot hold a grudge even if I want to. I find it easy to love my students, my family, my friends, and even those I dislike at first, I can easily come to care about if I see the vulnerable side of them. When Christians say this, it makes me believe that they are the ones who have difficulty loving others if they truly believe it takes a supernatural effort to do it. I, personally, don’t find it that difficult.

This is the myth that actually inspired this blog. Because I am pretty open about my inability to believe the bible, I occasionally receive mail or comments from well-meaning people concerned for my soul. I can live with that. There are worse things than knowing that someone out there cares enough about me to pray for me and to worry about where I will spend eternity. So recently, I was open to having a conversation with a Christian woman who said she wished to discuss my unbelief and faith struggles. I should have seen the warning signs that were always there, but I didn’t. I try to assume the best about people, so I brushed them aside, and told myself that I was merely being defensive. I wasn’t.

This particular woman had previously made comments about how she was praying for me to be able to “deal” with my students (I’m a high school teacher). She mentioned a few times how I needed God’s strength to do this. At the time I thought it was strange. I don’t find it difficult to interact with my students. In fact, my students are the best part of my job. They are fun, entertaining, at times sweet, very lovable, intellectually fascinating, and I see them as my “other kids.” I love talking to them, teaching them, I hurt for them when they struggle, I laugh with them about all kinds of things, I listen to their problems, learn from their insights and experiences, and I cry and celebrate when I see them graduate. So, I brushed aside the feeling that she was somehow concerned that I was unable to show kindness to them or care about them merely because I was unable to have faith that God is good or believe the bible. After all, a lot of people who don’t work with teenagers seem to think that that would be the difficult part of the job. It’s not. Almost all high school teachers enjoy their students and consider their time with them the best thing about teaching.

So, I decided to see what she had to say, if she had any insight that I hadn’t considered, but when she contacted me, she made it very clear that she was not concerned about me at all, but for my influence on my students. She implied—no strike that—she told me directly that without God’s supernatural ability to love, I could not show love to my students, and she was concerned and praying for me so that I would have God’s help in order to show my poor students kindness and love. Naturally, I was very hurt and extremely insulted. Not only did she not care about me at all, she assumed I did not care for or treat my students with love and kindness. Newsflash: All people are capable of love, at times unconditional love, at times self-sacrificing love. Christians are not any more capable of this than anyone else. In fact, those who hold dogmatic beliefs, often struggle with this concept more than others, but even they are capable.

4)YOU NEED FAITH IN GOD AND SUPERNATURAL STRENGTH TO BE A MORAL PERSON. Again, I don’t find this particularly difficult. I am not trying to say I am a perfect person, without sin, without a mean thought, or that I haven’t said something I regret that’s hurt someone. I have. But I am a moral person with high standards of ethics by which I actively try to live. I believe most people who have internalized a moral code, whether or not they are believers, tend to do good things and avoid evil things, and those who have low moral standards won’t be any different because they convert to a certain religion. There are a few exceptions to this, but this is my overall experience. In addition, some of the most kind, compassionate, and moral people I have ever met have been atheists. If you need supernatural strength to be moral, then you probably have not really internalized your moral beliefs.

5) IF AFTER BELIEVING IN THE TENETS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH AND SINCERELY FOLLOWING CHRIST, YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND THROUGH RATIONAL THOUGHT AND INTENSE INVESTIGATION, YOU MUST NEVER HAVE REALLY BEEN SAVED. Well, the last one would only be true if there is no god or no salvation because if one sincerely believed and confessed with his mouth, then according to Christian belief, they were saved. Some Christians believe a person can lose salvation and others believe one can’t. Either way, it does not change the fact that according to Christian belief, they were, at one time, saved.

However, if there is no such thing, then it is true, they never were. Nevertheless, this does not diminish the fact that the belief and profession were once real. Christians should not presume that people are putting on a façade or that they did not truly believe and commit at one time. It is all too easy for Christians to explain away apostasy by assuming there was something wrong with the initial conversion of someone who reneges on a life of accepting what makes no sense without faith and acceptance in the “I’m not God, so I’ll never understand” mentality. It is the only way they can justify anyone abandoning Christianity.

But the truth is, numerous people who were sincere in their faith and commitment at the time of their conversions are leaving the faith daily. Still others are afraid to “come out” with their doubts and questions for fear of attacks from the Christian community as we recently saw in the case of Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay when he merely questioned mainstream religious views on gay marriage.

This is extremely common, but the fact is, people do have questions, and it’s okay to say that the bible does not make sense to them without being accused of being incapable of happiness, lacking purpose, or having a difficult marriage full of conflict. They should not be accused of being incapable of selfless love, powerless to act according to moral behavior, or be accused of “pretending” to be a Christian when they used to actually believe, but have later thoughtfully, carefully, and agonizingly come to the conclusion that they cannot maintain faith in these beliefs.

The perpetuation of these myths that some Christians hold toward non-believers is shallow and destructive to others, which I do not believe is a stated Christian value. Furthermore, it shows a lack of observation and understanding of the real world and the people in it, and serves no purpose apart from inflating the hubris of the pious by believing they have access to special abilities that no one else supposedly does. It would be much more helpful to realize that we are all humans with the same types of thoughts, feelings, fears, and often times, motivations. Christians don’t have a monopoly on happiness and ethics, and we all are capable of goodness, we are all flawed, and we are all human, regardless of beliefs.—Christina Knowles

Originally posted in 2014

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I hear a lot of people complain that morals are changing. Shouldn’t they evolve as we learn more? This leads to the inevitable debate of objective morality vs. relative morality. Morality seems somewhat subjective, but not completely relative, at least among thoughtful and intelligent beings. For example, we tend to believe that things are right or wrong on a standard of well-being. If the well-being of living creatures, for instance, is the standard, then we can develop an objective morality based on this even though circumstances will always dictate shades of gray in individual situations. So it must change as we change, right?

Over time, morality does indeed change. For instance, we now have more liberal views on things like punishing children, working on Sunday, considering a menstruating woman unclean, and understanding that homosexuality is not a choice. Certainly, we can acknowledge that most people now view slavery as immoral, genocide as evil, and democratic societies obviously have a different morality than totalitarian ones. At one time, great majorities of people considered these things right for one reason or another, so we know that morality changes.

Religious people tend to think we get our morality from a divine being, but this does not make sense if morality changes unless they are acknowledging that their god changes his mind as well. However, many do not admit this is the case. I would submit to them that they are more moral than the god they say gave them the basis for their morality. Even most bible-literalists in the Christian faith are far more moral than their god by today’s standards.

For example, the god of the bible told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an altar to prove his obedience. Abraham was willing to go through with this until God stopped him at the last moment, satisfied in his allegiance. When asked if they would be willing to sacrifice their own child on an altar if they thought their god had commanded them to, most Christians find the idea repugnant, which is a good thing. They often try to circumvent the point by saying that God would never ask them to do such a thing. I’m not sure why they think he would ask this of Abraham, but not them. Perhaps because their god, apparently, no longer shows himself to anyone. At any rate, they would not do it, which reveals that modern morality is more in line with well-being than the god who supposedly distributed this morality.

Another objection to this example is the contention that God would never make Abraham go through with it because God is good. However, Abraham seemed to have a close relationship with God, having direct access to God on more than one occasion. It seems he knew God and his character well, yet Abraham seemed to believe it was within God’s character to demand this sacrifice. He believed God would make him kill his son—and again, he supposedly personally knew God. And if modern Christians are right in thinking God would never ask them to do something like this, then at the very least, this is another indication of God’s changing character, or in my opinion, that he was just a creation of a harsh and cruel society of ancient men whose ideas of morality and what a divine being would be like are much inferior to that of modern man.

This is just one example of the numerous detestable and immoral things the god of Abraham demanded of his people. He also demanded genocide, rape, slavery, and the oppression of people based on race and gender. To say we get an objective morality from a source like this is ridiculous. We are much more moral than that. Their god seems to have the morality of an ancient Middle Eastern, patriarchal, and scientifically uninformed people group. I wonder why. –Christina Knowles

Originally published in 2015

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I know that right now is the wrong time to say this. I know there never is a right time according to the politically correct mandate we all live under today, but I’m sick of being politically correct. I’m sick of worrying if someone is going to be offended. I’m probably going to get hate mail for this, but I can’t be silent on this any longer.

The heinous infection that is Islam is spreading across the world. And don’t bother telling me that it is a religion of peace. If you are Muslim, and you think your religion is one of peace, then you are doing it wrong. You don’t even believe your own holy book.

But I won’t stop there. It wouldn’t be fair. Judaism is not a religion of peace. Christianity is not a religion of peace. These three main religions have their roots in violence, their gods are violent, and their people are violent if they literally follow the rules of their holy books.

The fact is, fortunately, most of these believers don’t follow their religion, don’t listen to their holy words, don’t accept the hatefulness of their gods. Why not go one step further and dismiss the whole religion? If you need to reinterpret your holy book to raise the standard of your religion to the higher morals you already have, then dump the whole thing. You are more moral than your god, unless you are a terrorist, in which case, you are doing your religion correctly.

Many people fall back on the ideology that the Old Testament or the Quran are to be taken figuratively, or that the New Testament overrides the old. But this is just an excuse. Jesus condones the horrific acts of God all through the New Testament, and if you have to twist the words of the Bible or Quran to make them more palatable, then it’s not a book worth following, or even reading, for that matter. By the way, these books were supposedly taken literally by the people living in the time they were written, so apparently, they were written to be literal.

And being against the acceptance and practice of ridiculous belief systems is NOT racism. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with faith. I find it hard to fathom that in this day and age, we would praise the ability of blindly accepting that which makes absolutely no sense, is contradicted both by science and its own words, and is supported by zero evidence, as a trait worth aspiring to. It’s time for religion to come under the same scrutiny and criticism allowed in every other claim of knowledge. It is not exempt because you may be offended.

It’s true, the end of religion won’t be the end of all violence, but it would be a great start. It’s time to grow up and realize that Santa is not coming. Your parents, as well-meaning as they were, lied to you. Only when we embrace facts and science can we end religious terrorism. Every prayer you send up for the victims of terrorists validates the idea of fantasy creatures who command the eradication of those who do not believe and encourages this notion that faith is a good thing. It is not. It most definitely is not.—Christina Knowles

Originally published in 2015

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Join me on October 12, 2016 at 7 pm (Mountain Time) as I guest co-host Atheists on High. According to host, Skeptic Bret, “Atheists on High is a four man wrecking crew, assembled to dig into the hard conversations that everyone has in their head when nobody is listening.”

This is sure to be a lot of fun, and hopefully enlightening, as we delve in to topics such as separation of church and state in our education system and any other topics that happen to inspire us at the moment.

This is a rowdy crew and tends to be explicit, so parental guidance is suggested.

Follow Atheists on High on Facebook to get notifications for the live-streaming podcast.

See you there!

Originally published in 2016

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I believe it’s our experiences, good or bad, that make us change and grow. Overcoming conflict, enduring pain, learning to adjust to new circumstances, and coming out the other side stronger and more compassionate are the points to human existence. Whether or not it is our “purpose” bestowed upon us by a divine orchestrator or not is irrelevant. How we handle these struggles gives our lives meaning. Well, it’s that time of year again. The time when we stop and take stock of where our lives have been and where they are going to see if we need to redirect or to set new goals if our old ones no longer represent who we have become since last we did this.

So at the end of every year, I reflect on the major events in my life for the past twelve months and decide on a course correction for the next twelve. As usual, this year was packed full of change, tragedy, joy, and life lessons. This year my son and his wife moved to Florida, taking my two little grandchildren far away, which has been difficult. At school I started teaching AP classes, creating stress and an even greater workload challenge, but it has also refined my teaching skills. But the three major life events this year that have affected me in the most profound ways are, in chronological order, definitely not in order of importance, publishing my first novel in paperback, leaving the Christian faith again, and my mother’s death.

I started 2014 by publishing The Ezekiel Project in paperback. Publishing and marketing a novel has made me grow in ways I never anticipated. It was a huge milestone to accomplish, and it really solidified my need to pursue writing as my life’s ambition. It’s what makes me happy and fulfills my need to express myself. Publishing my novel was an intimidating thing, putting something out there for all the world to see and judge. I remember the day of its release, I had a free digital promotion and 18,000 copies were downloaded. The idea of people out there reading my novel, either loving it or hating it, judging me as a writer, possibly even as a person, was terrifying. I felt more vulnerable than I had ever felt in my life.

But after the initial fear waned, I felt more confident and willing to put myself out there without worrying about getting the approval of others. They like it or they don’t, but I need to do it. Acceptance aside, publishing my novel has caused me to focus on my passion and has given me joy. But beyond that, it made me develop as a person. I faced a fear, overcame it, and now I’m less afraid to take risks. I realize how many years I wasted fearing rejection or criticism.

Publishing my novel was not the only goal I had for this year. Having struggled with my faith since 2008, I decided to get serious about my spiritual growth. I took a class on how to study the bible and started attending a small group bible study. However, the more I read the bible, the further away from spirituality I got. I thought I must be doing something wrong, so after reading about strengthening my faith, I committed to ninety days of devotions, which included studying the bible, praying, worshiping, and journaling. It seemed to backfire.

Before too long, I realized that I didn’t believe the bible at all, and if it was true, I wanted nothing to do with the twisted morality I saw in it. This led me to begin questioning the whole basis for my belief in God and the foundations of faith. It turns out I don’t really have any faith and could not continue in my practice of the Christian religion. But I’m okay with that. I don’t need a god to get through life, I don’t need to believe in an afterlife for comfort, and I don’t need religion to be a caring, moral person. I rejoined my secular humanist group, consisting primarily of atheists and am enjoying their thoughts and views on the world, which are much more in line with my conscience anyway. Of course, I do have to deal with upsetting my family, and particularly, my Christian husband. But while it may be disappointing to them, it does not affect our love for each other or the way we get along, and we respect each others’ beliefs.

I guess you could say my lack of faith was tested when my mother passed away in November, causing some people to think I would return to my faith for comfort. Losing my mother was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. It has been a roller coaster ride of hospital visits and close calls for the past few years. Each time she would bounce back and recover, so it was a bit of a shock when she finally let go and went to her rest. I had the privilege of saying goodbye, holding her hand as she passed away. I loved my mother with all my heart, and she was very strong in her Christian beliefs, but still, I felt no stirring of faith or belief return.

Instead, I realized that I had the strength within myself to endure this tragedy, to accept the grief, the pain of losing my mother without any divine help. In fact, I resented the implication that somehow non-believers “grieve with no hope” as the bible states. I don’t need the hope of an afterlife to make me feel better. This life is full and beautiful and quite sufficient.

My mother’s death confirmed to me that I am strong enough to endure tragedy and resilient enough to carry on. My mother’s passing was very difficult, and I loved her. There is nothing quite like losing a mother. I will always think of her, miss her, and need her, even though I’ll have to go on without her. She was proud of me, and I was a good daughter, so I am at peace knowing that. She knew I loved her very much, and I was there for her till the end. Losing my mom made me even more determined to live my life in a way that would have made her proud, but I can’t believe what I don’t. However, I can make the most of this life, helping others, being kind and compassionate, and not letting fear block me from chasing my dreams regardless of obstacles. I am determined to not waste time, to love freely, be myself, accept others for who they are, and to “live fully and die full.” My mother lived life according to her beliefs and conscience, and I intend to do the same. They just happen to be different from hers.

So as this year ends, and I look forward to the next, I intend to stretch myself, take risks to follow my dreams and focus on what is important and to cast aside what’s not. I will prioritize life by loving those around me, touching the lives I can, and I will try my best to not worry about what I cannot change. I want to be kind, adventurous, gentle, and to remember that the world can be a beautiful and good place, to notice that good on a daily basis and do my part to make it even better. That will encompass all my New Year’s resolutions for the coming year. So even though there have been hardships and pain this past year, I am grateful for 2014 and all it has taught me. Happy new year!—Christina Knowles